Troubleshooting - FAQ

FAQ

Installation Issues

This page addresses some common problems when installing the exporter and alternate UI. Note that starting with 2015, some of these problems are no longer relevant, as the importer, exporter, and alternate UI are bundled together.

Q: I installed the exporter and UI, but I don't see any buttons in the add-in tab. How do I use it?
A: The exporter seamlessly replaces the existing "out of the box" exporter. Simply use Revit Button -> Export -> IFC as usual. Similarly for import, use Link IFC in the insert tab, or via the Manage Links button.

Q: I downloaded the exporter, but I still have the old UI. What happened?
A: For 2013 and 2014, there are two separate products to install: the exporter and the alternate UI. Although they work independently, they are intended to work together, and you may get only partial improvements with just one.

Q: I upgraded to the Revit 2014 exporter from Revit 2013, but now my exports are worse! What happened?
A1: The newest versions of the Revit 2014 exporter need at least Revit 2014 UR1 to run. If you are using Revit 2014 without any Update Release patches, it will silently fail and revert to the standard functionality.
A2: You may not have the right permissions to use the add-in. If the add-in was installed by an administrator, and you do not have administrative privileges, it may not run.

Q: How can I know what version of the exporter and UI I am using?
A: For the UI, you can find the version number on the dialog box when you export. To know if you have the right version of the exporter running, you can either look at the Control Panel in the Add/Remove Programs list, or you can do a trivial export and open up the file in Notepad. Search for FILE_NAME and you will see the version of the Exporter and the Alternate UI. If you see an odd version number there, look through the other items on this troubleshooting page for more information.

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A real example below follows of a bad export. The user downloaded both the exporter and the UI, but the new functionality wasn't there. Looking at the IFC file generated, the FILE_NAME lines looks like:

FILE_NAME('','2014-07-06T21:26:05',(''),(''),'The EXPRESS Data Manager Version 5.01.0100.02.64mod : 6 Jun 2012','20130308_1515(x64) - Exporter 2014.0.2013.0308 - Alternate UI 2.10.2.0','');

In this case, we can see that the alternate UI is properly installed, but the default exporter (Exporter 2014.0.2013.0308) is being used. The reason is that UR1 isn't installed - the Revit file version is 20130308_1515(x64), which is the initial release. Updating to UR1 (or later) will likely result in proper exports.

Common Data Issues

Q: The export seems to work, but my grids aren't exporting. Why?
A1: Grids by default are set to "Not Exported". Please check that they are set to "IfcGrid" in Revit > Export > Options > IFC Options.
A2: IFC does not support exporting grids that have only parallel grid lines. The IfcGrid definition contains:

UAxes    :      LIST [1:?] OF UNIQUE IfcGridAxis; 
VAxes    :      LIST [1:?] OF UNIQUE IfcGridAxis; 
WAxes    :      OPTIONAL LIST [1:?] OF UNIQUE IfcGridAxis;

So the W axis is optional, but U and V aren't. Now, we could export “orphaned” IfcGridAxes, but that’s disallowed too:

WHERE
WR2 : (SIZEOF(PartOfU) = 1) XOR (SIZEOF(PartOfV) = 1) XOR (SIZEOF(PartOfW) = 1);

An IfcGridAxis has to be part of exactly one IfcGrid. If you add even one orthogonal grid line, your grid will be exported.

Q: I created a user defined property sets file that contains properties with non-ASCII characters in them (such as å or ö). Why won't these properties export while others do?
A: Make sure to save the text file with encoding "UTF8" if it has any special characters in it, otherwise it will be read in incorrectly.

Open Source Code

Q1: I am having trouble downloading the source code. How do I do it?
Q2: I have downloaded the open source code, but can't get the project to compile. What do I do?

A: Read the document below that contains information about how to build the open source code. It was written for 2014 but should address many issues even with 2015. For further issues, write a message in the Discussion area.

Q: I have made changes to the open source, but can't commit them back to the repository. How do I do that?

A: Contributions to the open source must be approved by the Open Source Steering Committee. If you have a change you'd like to donate to the project that you think would be generally useful, please contact Angel Velez at angel.velez@autodesk.com for more information.

[Angel Velez]

This document contains instructions for how to set up a local environment to build the open source. It hasn't yet been updated for 2015.